Environment and delirium in Hospitalized elderly: Integrative literature review

Objective: to identify studies in the national and international literature on the relationship between delirium and environment (ambience) in hospitalized aged people. Method: an integrative review in which the MEDLINE/PubMed, EMBASE, CINAHL, Scopus, Web of Science and Virtual Health Library Portal (Portal da Biblioteca Virtual em Saúde) databases were searched in September 2022. Results: the search resulted in 1,199 articles, of which 291 were excluded due to duplicity and 908 after reading their titles and abstracts, which resulted in 10 articles that comprised the analysis corpus of the review. Lower occurrence of delirium was associated with hospitalization in Geriatric Nursing wards (OR: 0.90, 95% CI: 0.024-0.331, p<0.001) and with implementation of a home-based hospital during rehabilitation (OR: 0.17, 95% CI: 0 .03-0.65, p=0.0564); there was an association between delirium and night time medical evaluations (OR: 2.22, 95% CI: 1.17-4.22, p=0.015), time spent in the emergency sector greater than 10 hours (OR: 2.23 95% CI: 1.13-4.41, p=0.04), and room transfers per patient/day (OR: 9.69 95% CI: 6.20-15.16, p<0.0001). Conclusion: changes in the environment are precipitating factors for delirium. The environment is a potentially modifiable risk factor for delirium reduction in hospitalized aged people.